By Patrick McGroarty
Special to the Reporter

Five years of planning and plowing have reversed decades of man-made abuse on a 15-acre plot of the Neponset River Reservation.

The Great Meadows Farms contracting company has spent the summer scraping away 46,400 cubic yards of earth from the affected land, lowering the elevation by almost five feet. Officials are pushing for one more week of work to restore an additional acre or two before an August 25 celebration that will include public tours.

The 70 acres of salt marsh within the 842-acre reservation are thought to be a sliver of what existed prior to human meddling that dates back to the 1630s. More drastic changes to the habitat, crucial to over 200 species of fowl and mammals, took place in the 20th century.

The Neponset River's importance as a shipping route necessitated a deep, wide channel for barges and boats and state officials regularly dredged the river at least as recently as the 1930s or '40s, said Ian Cooke, executive director of the Neponset River Watershed Association.

"They would build dams at the edges of the marsh, then pump mud from the river bottom over the side, filling it in," said Cooke. "The consequence is a raised elevation that can't be flooded with salt water as effectively."

The absence of reliable saltwater tides was destructive to natural flora and fauna species and inviting to plants such as Phragmites australis, an invasive reed. Though scientists believe the reed is native to North America, the last century saw a drastic increase in its range and dominance; the plant often chokes other species, especially where lowered water levels have decreased contact with salt water, as in the Neponset marsh.

The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation has owned the reservation since 1896, making it the oldest protected salt marsh in North America. The DCR (formerly the Metropolitan District Commission) and other environmental watch groups had long been interested in restoring at least portions of the Neponset marshes to their pre-human hand condition. Despite the existence of ample federal funds, matching all the prerequisites can be difficult.

"It's often very hard to come up with the matching funds," said Susan Redlich, director of the Corporate Wetlands Restoration Project. "These federal grants require additional commitments from the state and private donors to become a reality."

A desire to bridge that gap prompted the 1999 creation of the CWRP as a collaborative project between the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, the Gillette Company, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Gillette company has put $50,000 towards the project, said Redlich, and total grants have topped $1 million for 36 projects around Massachusetts.

"The success of this program has prompted the creation of CWRP chapters in 12 other states," Redlich boasted.

She displayed results of the project on a recent walkthrough of the restored region. Rather than removing thousands of tons of earth completely, contractors have pushed between 4-5 feet of topsoil in affected areas into a central berm that will one day be covered by birch trees. Though officials say success of the project will have to be judged overtime, progress was already clear. During high tide a thin layer of salt water covered the once dry marsh beds and native grasses could be seen peaking through the saturated earth.

"Repairing such a malfunctioning marsh often requires some additional tweaking after contractors pull out," said Tim Smith of the Massachusetts Wetlands Restoration Program. "But the contractor was very adept at handling the difficulties of this project."

Contractors also did a favor to the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority when they discovered late Monday night that a pipe owned by the Authority was leaking substantially into the marsh. The Authority dispatched emergency workers to patch the water main, which feeds all of Quincy and parts of Milton. The 1950s-era pipe is thought to have succumbed to corrosion, said Authority spokesperson Ria Convery, and there is no way to judge how long it had been pouring freshwater into the marsh at a rate of 500,000 gallons a day.

"Emergency repairs cost about $75,000," said Convery. We're going to ask the DCR to repair any damage we caused to the marsh and then reimburse them later for that work.

CWRP officials hope to free up a small amount of additional funds to make one last push prior to the August 25 celebration, which will begin at 11 am at the Captain R.B. Forbes house in Milton.

After that, it's on to Phase II.

"Eventually, we'd love to restore all 70 acres of the marsh," said Redlich. "That's the hope."